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OP's house sounds to me like a ranch on a sloped lot. The slope just allowed the garage to be under the house with a walk out basement. There are no "living/bedrooms" except on the main level.
Most houses have at least 1 or 2 steps to get in the front door, depending how high the basement sticks up.
OP's house sounds to me like a ranch on a sloped lot. The slope just allowed the garage to be under the house with a walk out basement. There are no "living/bedrooms" except on the main level.
Most houses have at least 1 or 2 steps to get in the front door, depending how high the basement sticks up.
Ranches on the Eastern Half of the US and most parts of the US that are not subject to flooding, hurricanes, and other extreme weather, most frequently do have basements. To add additional space, many were finished. Below grade finished space does not change a house into another style. It turns it int a ranch with a finished basement.
Few houses are built without basements and are entered without at least one step to enter. Sometimes just for decoration.
Very flat houses without basements or crawl spaces are rare. Many are pre-fab. Site built houses with no basements and no interior steps at all are RARE. One or two interior steps do not disqualify a house as a ranch.
Houses built following WWII, by builders such as Levittown NY, PA and NJ, were stat with no stoops, interior steps or stairs of any sort. When you enter you don't go up or down.
Many ranches in the mid 1960s had something called a "sunken living room" which was one or maximum two stairs down. It was an architectural feature, and the house is still called a ranch.
OP's house sounds to me like a ranch on a sloped lot. The slope just allowed the garage to be under the house with a walk out basement. There are no "living/bedrooms" except on the main level.
Most houses have at least 1 or 2 steps to get in the front door, depending how high the basement sticks up.
That's what my town thinks as well. Ranch with walk out. .
My most interesting house was a tri-level. When you looked at it from the front, the left side was two story and the right side one story. Lower side left had kitchen, dining room, TV room, laundry and 1/2 bath. 6 stairs up (from either dining room or TV room) led to the right side and a massive living room. 6 stairs up from living room led to upper left side with 3 bedrooms and a full bath.
My last two houses have been one level with one step up. I do not do stairs anymore.
Ranches on the Eastern Half of the US and most parts of the US that are not subject to flooding, hurricanes, and other extreme weather, most frequently do have basements. To add additional space, many were finished. Below grade finished space does not change a house into another style. It turns it int a ranch with a finished basement.
Few houses are built without basements and are entered without at least one step to enter. Sometimes just for decoration.
Very flat houses without basements or crawl spaces are rare. Many are pre-fab. Site built houses with no basements and no interior steps at all are RARE. One or two interior steps do not disqualify a house as a ranch.
Houses built following WWII, by builders such as Levittown NY, PA and NJ, were stat with no stoops, interior steps or stairs of any sort. When you enter you don't go up or down.
Many ranches in the mid 1960s had something called a "sunken living room" which was one or maximum two stairs down. It was an architectural feature, and the house is still called a ranch.
Your points are very much location and local market specific.
Our local market in the Southeast differs widely from yours.
Ranch houses on concrete slabs or crawlspaces are not at all uncommon here. There are some basements, but they are not at all the rule in any style of home.
Sunken living rooms, a bizarre pox on common sense in design, are not uncommon here in 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's houses, whether one or two stories.
A lot of terminology is local too. On Long Island there are split levels and hi-ranches, but I suspect most people would call both split levels.
On LI, when you walk in a house and there are stairs immediately going up to the main level, and stairs going down to the basement, that's a high ranch.
When the stairs are in the middle of the house, and facing the sides of the house, that's a split.
Then there are "front-to-back" splits, which I thought were the coolest houses ever as a kid - so NEW!!! LOL. Walk in and there's a room on the right or the left. Walk up a couple steps and there's a big combo living and dining room, and kitchen. Go up another staircase that's open to that level, and creates a balcony, with all the bedrooms off the balcony.
Your house, to me, is a ranch, since all living is done on one level, regardless of where the garage is.
In my area, we have 1 story homes and 2 story homes, the end. When people from other states move here asking for a "Ranch", I ask "so you want a 1 story home?"
Some can be stated as 1.5 story if all main living is on the main floor, and there's just a Gameroom or 1 bedroom upstairs. Others, if there are stairs in the house, that's a 2 story house.
So I live in a house where I take two steps and get on the main level, however, I have walk out basement and my garage is under the living room. I need to take 10 stairs to get to the basement/garage, or I can walk out through the front door and walk to the garage as my yard slopes back.
I don't have stairs landing when I enter the house and I enter directly to main level.
So do I live in a ranch, raised ranch, split level?
Sounds like a split level to me.
A "Ranch" would be all on one level.
A "Raised ranch" would require several steps up to enter and have everything on one level, a "Split level" would have multiple levels with the entry in between levels, vertically. At least that's what I have encountered personally growing up on Long Island, NY. I wouldn't have a garage located under any area where people would be. Cold, drafty and the danger of CO poisoning.
Here when you walk in the door and immediately have to go up or down that is a split level. Some of the photos MJ has would be ranches here, and then we would also have the tri-level where you walk into the main level, go down a half a flight or so to the basement/garage and then up a half a flight to the bedrooms.
Well...ranches are strictly one level homes, but what happens if you have finished walk out basement? Not so much one level anymore. I haven't seen any house in my area without basement, some of them have crawl space but 90% have basements, some are finished + walk out. Most of them have laundry in the basement and laundry on the main is a feature.
So apparently if we were strict then ranch house is a one level house with crawl space because this actually means that everything in that house is one level. Any deviation from that definition is no longer a ranch.
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